Social media marketing is an extremely robust and cost-effective way of reaching out to your prospective customers. This is the reason why social media marketing has become a part of almost all of the digital marketing campaigns of today. Here are a few of the social media marketing trends and tactics that you should focus on in 2020.
Influencer Marketing
It is no secret that people are more open to suggestions from a personal and reputable source of information. Social media influencers build a solid reputation for themselves in specific areas and have a loyal army of followers. These people listen to everything the influencers have to say and use their opinions to form their own decisions.
A simple “shoutout” from a distinguished social media influencer can net you a multitude of leads in a small amount of time. This is the reason why influencer marketing has been extremely useful for businesses in the past and continues to be in 2020.
Influencer marketing is not new. In fact, it has been around for a while now and has already proved its effectiveness in generating leads. As influencer marketing continues to rise, the key element to look out for is the shift from highly popular influencers (500,000 to 1,000,000 followers) to slightly less popular influencers with 10,000 to 100,000 followers.
Businesses have realized that these types of influencers are able to offer a more niche following with a better engagement rate. All of this at a lower cost per campaign spells a “win-win” for businesses, influencers, and followers alike.
User Generated Content
Another great trend for 2020 is the projected rise of UGC or user-generated content. UGC allows businesses to use the content generated that their users generate for marketing purposes and avoid spending valuable company resources; too much This is especially effective for larger companies with a wider user base. With a plethora of users submitting their own self-created and self-produced content, these companies can select the best out of the bunch, compile it, and use it in their ad campaigns.
Benefits of UGC
UGC has two main benefits. Firstly, the cost of writing/creating, and producing the content lies on the shoulders of the user itself. The company does not have to bear the costs of an expensive digital marketing campaign.
Secondly, members of the audience create the content themselves, which gives it a lot more personal feel to the rest of the audience, as compared to high-budget production campaigns. This way, UGC can lead to more effective lead generation while saving potential costs for the companies.
Companies like GoPro already embraced the benefits of UGC. Their official YouTube channel regularly features videos of their customers using their products to capture their adventures on video. The footage showcases the capabilities and features of the GoPro cameras to potential customers, as well as the different ways they can use them for their benefit. All of this without spending obscene amounts of money on an expensive mass marketing campaign.
Other Social Media Platforms
The recent boom in the popularity of alternative social media platforms like TikTok sparked an interest in platforms other than the usual (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter) for digital marketing purposes. The younger generations are highly active on platforms like TikTok, and much more engaged with content creators on those platforms. Expect a shift from the major platforms of today to newer or more niche social platforms.
We can attribute part of this shift to the surge in the popularity of newer platforms. However, a considerable part of the reason has got to do with businesses realizing that these platforms can help in narrowing down their target audience. For example, a game developer company is best off using Twitch for marketing, while B2B companies should continue with LinkedIn for social media marketing. However, any company geared towards the younger audience would be making moves towards TikTok as their platform of choice in 2020.
